This discussion kind of picks up where we left off a while back on this topic. I myself am in a bit of a philosophical time about it all. My wife has resented my grill hobby for a long time. I can’t say it is a side business because I spend more than I take in. She just sees hours of time spent on something that means nothing to her, and even if I made some $ she would still hate it.
For me, my first problem is that I am a hopeless collector. The guys who actually make this hobby/business work know that you have to stick to the classic “buy low, sell high” rule. Look for money making opportunities - not cool grills. I, though, get carried away with visions of doing way more than my full-time job life - plus side jobs as a tax preparer and consultant - will ever allow. Worse, I let my collector bug lead me down interesting, but usually not financially viable paths, accumulating ever more more project grills that sit unfinished.
Now that I have a place to work some evenings and not have to stress over keeping my Saturdays for grills, I hope to get more done with less unhappiness at home. Still, my short-term goal is just to get ‘em done and gone whatever it takes. After that, well...
Due to the need to care for a relative, we are considering a major move to Indiana. I have to agree with my wife that most of my grill horde can’t all come with me, so that may force the issue for me.
I guess I wish I could do things over. If I could, I would confine myself to only getting grills I could actually use for myself, thus being limited to maybe a half dozen or so. Then, if I fell in love with some new grill I saw, something on hand would have to go first. Beyond that, I would like to do one restoration/flip at a time with no particular hurry or pressure. Those would mostly be 1000 or other early Genesis grills and maybe an occasional Broilmaster. The purpose would be the same reason other guys golf or fish. Not to expect to make any money.
Even so, I think my market here would allow me to sell an occasional classic Genesis at a high enough price to cover costs and return a tiny profit. But I have realized it takes a lot of time and work to do even one grill right. I better stick to my paying side job and stop dreaming of making enough money doing grills to justify the time I spend. Thus, we are only talking about a couple restoration grills a year.
(As a side note, around me there still are a good number of interesting candidate grills being offered. Because of that, I am also going to work hard on putting on hold my constant trolling of CL, OfferUp, FB Marketplace, etc. The last thing I need right now is another grill to restore
!)
I think guys like Bruce and Dave have the process down and can flip profitably. Sure there are peaks and valleys and cold winters don’t help, but overall you guys get it done. I doubt I ever can. This Florida winter hopefully will tell more. I am ok with being mainly a collector and grill fanatic, though. So, I plan to work hard at finishing and selling off what I have and then reigning in things to a low key level that is realistic for my current life situation. I want to enjoy grills (and grilling) and not be obsessed by them.